Johann Hari discusses how rats that are isolated in a cage with nothing to do prefer water laced with heroin over pure water. These rats will use the heroin until they eventually overdose, and it kills them. However, rats in a cage set up like a “rat park” where they have fun things to do and other rats to socialize with prefer the pure water over the heroin-laced water.
Johann raises some questions about this phenomenon. “What if addiction isn’t about your chemical hooks? What if addiction is about your “cage”? What if addiction is an adaptation to your environment?
“Maybe we should call it bonding. When we’re happy and healthy we bond and connect with each other. But if you can’t do that because you’re traumatized, or isolated, or beaten down by life, you will bond with something that will give you some sense of relief. Now, that might be gambling. That might be pornography. That might be cocaine. That might be cannabis. But you will bond and connect with something. Because that’s our nature. That’s what we want as human beings.”
Read the entire article here: LDS Women — Overcoming Pornography: The Opposite Of Addiction Is Connection.
Watch the Ted Talk here: Everything you think you know about addiction is wrong | Johann Hari
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